Policy Choices - Their Impact On Implementation And Program Assessment

Policy has many underlying assumptions and decisions. One of the most fundamental is the policy writer’s approach, or “model,” used to formulate policy. This paper will discuss how three different styles or models of policy formulation -strict compliance, strictly performance based, and hybrid policy models - impact the subsequent implementation of policy requirements. These models provide a spectrum of possible outcomes that can fit almost any need, but policy constructed under each model will have its own unique impact on the difficulty of implementation, the cost of implementation, the allocation of risk acceptance, and the difficulty of compliance verification. This paper will delineate some of the basic advantages and disadvantages of the aforementioned policy approaches.